(New York) The influential fashion journalist Andre Leon Talley, the first black to have been creative director of the American magazine vogue, died Tuesday in New York at the age of 73, according to a statement posted on his official Instagram account.
Posted at 9:52
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Andre Leon Talley,” the statement said. “An international icon for the last five decades, he was the close confidant of Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Paloma Picasso, Diane von Furstenberg and loved discovering, encouraging and celebrating young designers”.
Born in Washington in 1948, Andre Leon Talley was largely raised by his grandmother in Durham, North Carolina and became interested in fashion at a young age.
“Every Sunday I would cross the railway line to the affluent part of Durham to buy vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and I would come back to my grandmother to read my magazines”, he told the British daily The Guardian in May 2020. “I could put myself away from harassment and sexual assault and take refuge in a world of beauty “.
He had studied French in college, earning a master’s degree from the prestigious Brown University before entering the world of fashion journalism.
After going through the magazine Interview by Andy Warhol, the Women’s Wear Daily, W and a brief stay at New York Times, he joins vogue as director of fashion information in 1983, the same year that Anna Wintour became its editor-in-chief. He will remain there for thirty years, until his departure in 2013, with the titles of creative director or editor-in-chief, forming a flagship duo with Anna Wintour.
This exuberant colossus wanted more diversity on the catwalks and supported black designers. Besides his activities as a fashion journalist, he was a judge on the reality show America’s Next Top Model and also made appearances in some episodes of the series Sex and the City and Empire.
He has written three books including his memoirs in 2020 (The Chiffon Trenches), a bestseller in which he recounts his famous falling out with the all-powerful Anna Wintour.
The world of fashion and culture paid tribute to him on social networks. “Farewell dear Andre […] no one has seen the world more chic and elegant than you,” designer Diane de Furstenberg wrote on Instagram. “I loved you and I laughed with you for 45 years”.
Oscar-winning actresses Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis expressed their sadness on Twitter, as did the play’s author Slave Play, Jeremy O. Harris, who tweeted that “for a gay black boy who wanted to reach for the stars from the South, there were few people up there among the stars who looked like me, only more sublime, and towards whom I could look up, except you, Andre”.